


What We Have in Common

by TheWritingSquid



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Dadgil, Family Feels, Gen, Light Angst, Post DMC5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27267574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWritingSquid/pseuds/TheWritingSquid
Summary: In which Vergil inadvertantly finds a photo album of Nero's youth and can't help but peruse it.
Relationships: Nero & Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 196





	What We Have in Common

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is my contribution to the dadgil zine raffle! I went off the deep angst end, as usual ^^;

Vergil hadn’t meant to find the album. 

His fingers had been trailing the books in the living room as he scanned titles, curious about the type of literature his son kept at home. He’d found an entire shelf dedicated to romance, many with heavy fantasy elements, which Kyrie had already mentioned she loved to read when Nero was out on a mission—a preference, he understood, that had a lot to do with the guaranteed safety of romance heroes which allowed for the happy ending. But they also owned a considerable amount of historical non-fiction, especially about music, and as Vergil expected to be on his own for some time, he’d deemed it a good way to pass the time. 

Then he’d spotted the unmarked, thick book and slid it partly out, eager to crack it open and unravel its mystery, only to realise the pages were not paper, but sheets of plastic meant to welcome pictures. He’d frozen, the world narrowing to his fingers on the leather spine and the brutal longing and fear battering his heart.

An album, at least a decade old by the looks of it. Here in Nero’s home.

He should not. He had no right to these memories, to glimpse his son’s past, a life inflicted upon him by his absence. Dante and him had returned only a few months ago, and although Vergil visited Nero at times under one excuse or another, they had held each other at arm’s length. It was better this way, for everyone involved. And he shouldn’t pry. He shouldn’t. Vergil stared at his fingers, willing them to release the spine, to move on to the other books and leave the album alone.

He pulled it out instead, cracking it open before he could stop himself and put it back. The plastic pages peeled off one another so loudly that Vergil’s breath caught and he stared at the door, half-expecting someone to appear there, ready to scold him. The house remained quiet, oh so quiet. Nero was hunting demons, and Kyrie had had errands to run. He was alone here, alone with his son’s past.

He’d started halfway through, to an old faded picture of Nero, no more than twelve or thirteen, holding a wooden sword in a clumsy grip, glaring up at a much older boy with straight brown hair and a severe expression. The older one’s stance was much better, the kind Vergil expected from trained swordsmen, and unlike Nero, he had no scuff marks or dirt on his clothes. Vergil suspected the sparring had not been going well for his son.

His eyes stayed glued to the picture, seconds drifted by, turning into minutes. He stared at Nero’s longer hair, its unruly thickness reminiscent of Dante’s—of his own, if he didn’t care for it properly—then traced the boy’s wiry frame with his finger. Quiet pain trickled through him, drop by drop, filling his heart. Grief, he realized, for all that could have been.

He forced himself to flip the page, to go backward through the pictures, absorbing scene after scene of Nero’s life, most of them with this older boy or a young girl he recognized as Kyrie. At first they were never all three together, not until he found a single picture of them in black clothes, dressed all proper and somber. Funerals, he realized, and he had no idea how old Nero might have been then. He stared at the pale boy’s puffed blue eyes as if they could answer. Older than he’d been, when tragedy struck? Younger? Not that this could compare, of course. Nothing would.

Vergil squeezed his eyes shut, pushing away horrific memories, fire dancing behind his eyelids, his back burning in phantom pain. He would not return there, not today. He forced long, deep breaths in until the imaginary smoke dispersed, then turned his attention to the family pictures once more. 

This time, Vergil moved through them at significant speed, growing ever closer to the start of the album. His eyes scanned the images, his breath short, as if he held it in between each photo. They hurt in a quiet, subtle way, each a reminder of a life that had passed him by. But more than that… he was searching, he realized, searching in Nero’s wide eyes and easy smiles for a trace of himself, a recognition of the child he had been, quiet, bookish, and easily provoked by Dante’s endless antics. Every new page left him wanting, craving for that tiny connection, but he’d never been the child climbing trees he saw in Nero’s album, not remotely.

Then he reached the very first picture, tucked at the start, its colour faded. Nero stood against a wall, his shoulders hunched and his hands half-raised, fingers curled into near fists. The too-large shirt on his back had countless tears and stains, his arms were covered in bruises and old scars. Even through the blurriness of an old photo, Vergil could tell his hair was heavy with grease, staying plastered to his forehead instead of flying in impressive fluff as it had in other images. Nero glared at the camera from under his long bangs, and the air emptied from Vergil’s lungs.

 _That_ was all him. The pain and distrust etched into every inch of this young boy, how the anger and determination in his eyes hid deep scars. The Nero in this picture had more in common with a feral cat than with most human boys, and Vergil’s heart twisted. He could never see himself in his son’s joy and the fragments of loving family Nero had enjoyed, but he recognized all too well the pain. It didn’t matter that Nero’s time in the orphanage couldn’t compare to the brutal night Vergil’s entire life had been put to the torch: at the end of the day, the same scars of trauma and abandonment had been seared into their souls.

Vergil snapped the album shut, the bitterness on his tongue seeping into his heart. What else had he expected? Pain was all he knew, all he recognized. He should have expected this and braced for it, but the happy photos and lured him into complacency. He hadn’t been ready for the broken boy in that single picture and how deeply that single, distrustful glare had resonated within him. How awful, to have nothing but wounds in common with his son, and yet…

Slowly, he traced the motif on top of the album, the shift of texture under his fingers calming him. Perhaps that shared pain was precisely what had saved him, what Nero had recognized in V and why he had stayed to help him. If the young boy fresh out of the orphanage craved love and protection as deeply as Vergil had, swords lanced through his tiny frame, his life seeping out of him while the house burned, was it any wonder that Nero had saved him? 

The ache in Vergil’s chest dampened and he unfurled from his chair, ready to return the album where it belonged. It hurt to have no shared memories with Nero, nothing in common upon which to build their relationship except mutual trauma, but Vergil gritted his teeth. He may not know how to do this or where to start, but he would not balk from the challenges. Nero was family—a spiky, difficult word if ever there was one—and for once, Vergil wanted it to mean something kinder, for him and Nero both.


End file.
